Peter Kilmartin rose from the small table in the stacks of the St James’s Library where the new volume on the Akkadian language had absorbed him for the past hour. The book still lay open at a colour image of the bronze head of King Sargon. Kilmartin had always been convinced it was in fact a portrait of Naram Sin, one of the builders of the city of Nineveh and the subject of his own book. But identification seemed to matter less after the head had vanished in the looting of the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad, which had been a moment of near physical anguish for him. The loss in those first weeks of the war over a decade before was incalculable – the jewellery from the royal tombs at Ur, tablets containing the first written poetry and one of the earliest accounts of the Flood, thousands and thousands of objects that had not yielded their secrets.
On the facing page was a map of Assyria superimposed on modern-day Iraq. Kilmartin stared at it, thinking about the fate of the antiquities of Mesopotamia. On the whole he liked Americans, but the trouble was not one of their bloody generals knew that if you sank a shaft at the site of Nineveh, outside the modern city of Mosul, you would travel nearly a hundred feet down before hitting virgin soil – a hundred feet that took you back to the invention of agriculture and the very first cities in the history of mankind. They parked their bloody tanks in the oldest civilisation of the world, and pleading military priorities and a kind of unembarrassed folksy ignorance, let the sacking of the museum commence.
His gaze moved to the rooftops on the western side of St James’s Square. He’d do better to concentrate on the young woman he was about to meet. She didn’t know what he wanted and after serving eighteen months in prison she would certainly be on her guard against being trapped. He hoped his friend the priest would reassure her.
He picked up the volume, tugged the light switch and walked to the end of the stacks in near darkness, his feet ringing out on the metal plates. Through the grid of the floor and the ceiling above him he could see one or two people working at small tables, or searching the bookshelves. He thought of King Ashurbanipal’s great library at Nineveh and was somehow certain that it possessed the same bookish calm. He loved this place, particularly the stacks, which he thought far superior to the library’s Reading Room. That was for people who wanted to sleep or work – not to think.
Before reaching the end shelves he dropped down and pulled a book from the bottom shelf and looked at the lending record at the front. It had been taken out three times since 1995. That wasn’t good enough. Eventually he found one with a clean page, noted down its title and the library code on the spine and, having placed a postcard of a Samuel Palmer watercolour at page 150, returned it to the shelf. He left the stacks, stooping as he went through the door to join the carpeted stairway down to the hall. Ishtar’s Tongue – not a felicitous title, by any means – was stamped at the desk where he had a few words with Carrie Middleton, who had been there as long as he could remember and occasionally stored one or two items for him in the rare books safe. He didn’t leave immediately, but instead waited by the entrance for a cab to drop someone off at this corner of the square. The walk to St Mary’s Church was no more than a few minutes, but taking a cab meant his journey was unlikely to be monitored. Even though he was working for the prime minister he’d rather not leave a footprint.
The drop-in centre at St Mary’s crypt was stuffy and lit by strip lighting. The Reverend Roger Hopkins, his oldest friend, sat at a table in a dog collar and worn leather jacket with the young woman. As Kilmartin approached a small, sharp face looked up to search his without embarrassment.
‘Hello there,’ said Hopkins, throwing himself back. ‘Coffee?’
‘Tea, I think,’ said Kilmartin. ‘Thank you.’
‘This is Peter – the man I was telling you about.’
‘The spook,’ said the woman with undisguised hostility.
‘And this is Mary,’ continued Hopkins.
‘I’ve been retired,’ said Kilmartin pleasantly, ‘for quite some time now.’
‘Once a spook . . .’
‘That is what they say.’ He paused. ‘It’s very good of you to agree to talk to me.’
‘I’m not here to talk, just listen.’
‘Fine, I am very happy to—’
‘I want to know. Are you trying to set me up? I did my time. I lost everything – job, career, boyfriend, flat. It’s total bloody shite, you know? My friends won’t have anything to do with me. It’s like I’ve got leprosy. I can’t find work and I’m watched the whole fucking time. I wish I’d never got dragged into this business.’
In the unforgiving light of the crypt her face possessed an extreme, martyred beauty. She was short – no more than five foot two – with natural dark-brown hair and brown eyes. Her hands moved restlessly, sometimes seeking the shelter of the sleeves of her jersey.
‘But as I understand it you contacted David Eyam,’ he said quietly. ‘You got in touch after the first committee hearing. Isn’t that right?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s not true, not that it matters now he’s dead.’
‘I haven’t come here to offer you sympathy, salvation or even a means of revenge, but I do believe that we share a concern and I hope to be able to do something about that by bringing to light some of what you gave our friend.’
‘I can’t tell you anything.’
Hopkins reappeared with the tea. ‘I expect a healthy donation to the centre for all this, Peter,’ he said jovially. ‘It’s very quiet here at this time; you shouldn’t be disturbed.’ He went off to deal with a young man who had slumped across a table at the far end of the crypt.
‘You don’t look fifty-five,’ she said. ‘More like late forties. Are you sure you aren’t in government service?’
‘I’m fifty-seven actually and feel it. Any illusion to the contrary is due to good genes. I have some Basque blood swimming about me.’
She appraised him. ‘I had a visit last week. They came to tell me that if I said anything I would be put back in jail or prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act again and given a longer sentence. My family couldn’t take that. I’m taking a risk just talking to you.’
He nodded. ‘Look, I have a certain remit. Let’s call it an assignment from the very top. And that will explain to anyone who wants to know what I am doing talking to you. You’re not the only one.’
‘You write books,’ she said accusingly. ‘I looked you up.’
‘Not on your own computer, I hope,’ he said quickly.
‘I’m not that stupid.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I am at a slight disadvantage in all this. I was out of the country for the period of our friend’s exit from government and then your prosecution. I missed most of it and because there was nothing in the media I’m afraid I was not aware of what was going on until a long time afterwards.’
‘And now Mr Eyam’s dead,’ she said, sitting back and folding her arms. ‘I mean, you have to admit it all looks pretty convenient.’
He gave a shake of his head. ‘That’s not my style.’ He paused to drink his tea. ‘Let me just remind myself about your part in all this.’
‘Still,’ she said, unwilling to leave the subject, ‘they could have got someone else to do it – favour for favour. A shipment of cocaine overlooked, et cetera, et cetera. Nobody is exactly beating their chest over David Eyam’s death. He’s out of the way. He can’t cause any trouble now.’
‘Can I make an assumption? You were a high flyer. You must have been for them to entrust you with this information . . . with this project.’ He had added that wording hopefully. ‘But you see I’m at a disadvantage because I don’t know what it was. There’s no trace of a mention in the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report, but then of course you wouldn’t expect that because—’
‘Because the prime minister with the consultation of the committee excludes part of the report that would be prejudicial to the discharge of the functions of the intelligence agencies,’ she said as though reciting something dull in class.
‘Exactly,’ said Kilmartin, saluting her good memory with a nod. ‘And because the hearings are held in private there is no Hansard record. No journalists’ notes. Nothing to say what was discussed in that committee.’
‘So you’ve got nothing?’
‘Well, there are the members of the committee of course, but a glance down the list tells you that none of the nine is sufficiently onside to encourage an approach of the sort I have in mind. Yet they must have been interested in order for them to ask Eyam about this project in the first place. If the thing were so off limits, the chairman, who is very much the prime minister’s man, would have put a stop to it. So, I conclude that there was a move in the committee to examine whatever it was that you knew about, a move that may have been secretly frustrated.’
‘Look, this isn’t doing anything for me. I’m going.’
‘Please don’t, Mary,’ he said firmly. ‘We both understand how important this is. I am asking you to stay and hear me out.’ She sat back and looked the other way. ‘You said you were working for someone at the top. Why should I talk to you?’
‘I told you that so you would know there was a way we could both explain this conversation if ever you or I were asked about it. Look, I was a friend of David Eyam’s. I had complete faith in his judgement. I believe that what he and you did was the right thing.’
‘Not in the eyes of the law.’
Kilmartin offered her a look of regret. ‘I have managed to get hold of most of the transcript and I realise going through your case that you were not charged with passing anything to him; that there was no evidence that you ever met or communicated in anyway. But your lawyer made little of this.’
All the tension and angularity of her being flared in her eyes. ‘Don’t be so fucking dumb. You’re missing the whole point. I was charged with copying certain documents and information; that was enough to send me to jail. They didn’t have to prove that I passed the information to someone in order to demonstrate I was in breach of the Official Secrets Act. The mere act of copying was enough because it showed intent.’
‘Are you saying you never met Eyam?’
She leaned forward with her face close to the table. ‘Look, I can’t do this. I don’t know who the hell you are. If I admit anything to you they could charge me with the crime they never managed to bring to court – of actually leaking information.’
He drew back concessively and nodded. ‘I do understand your fears, but this isn’t about you.’ He stopped and slid an envelope towards her. ‘This is your membership of the St James’s Library. I have paid for your subscription. All you need do is go along with these forms signed and collect your membership card. It’s a private library, a wonderfully private institution.’
She said nothing. He picked up the postcard. ‘On the back of this I have written the location and title of a book. If you want to talk, simply leave a message where you find a similar card in the book. If you wish to give me something, but fear leaving it in the book, ask for Carrie at the front desk and she will keep it. She is completely reliable. You will be able to devise your own means of disguising what you hand to her. A hollowed-out book may seem rather old-fashioned but I have always found it works perfectly in those circumstances.’
She looked down at the card.
‘Please think about this. I need your help. But please also remember we’re in the business of resistance, Mary. You will have to be very, very careful. Do not mention this to anyone. Memorise what’s on the card and destroy it.’
She rose suddenly, scraping her chair on the floor. Then she leaned towards him with her delicate white hands splayed on the Formica of the tabletop. ‘I’m going.’
‘Please,’ he said, gesturing to the chair. ‘I want to say one more thing.’
She remained standing but did not leave.
‘Unless we hit them, Mary, this will go on and people like you will be hounded and harassed for as long as they choose. We’re fighting for something here. It’s nothing less than the good order of government and freedom, two things I feel rather strongly about. I believe you do too.’
‘Fine words, Mr Kilmartin, but that is the kind of sentiment that put me in jail. I don’t know who you’re working for and that is the only thing that interests me.’
‘We need ammunition, Mary. I can do nothing without it.’
She began shaking her head. ‘Sorry, I’ve really got to go.’ Then she turned and hurried from the crypt, but he noticed that she had taken the form and the card with her.
Kilmartin looked at his watch. There were three hours before the discussion programme for the Persian service at the BBC World Service headquarters in the Aldwych. He rose and thanked Hopkins, handing him a cheque for £500, which he had written out beforehand. It wasn’t the first, by any means. The income from his share of the family brewing business had become embarrassingly large and he saw no reason why the alcoholics who relied on Hopkins for shelter and support shouldn’t benefit from the sales of Kilmartin’s Ales, which under his brother’s management had bought whisky distilleries and several other drinks businesses. Besides, Hopkins was one of the few genuinely good people that he knew.
He left the crypt knowing he could have handled Mary MacCullum better. But when so little was known about what happened at those secret meetings of the Security and Intelligence Committee, there was no other way. He had to break through somewhere even if it did mean scaring her a little and perhaps worse, showing his hand.
He came to a junction in Soho, and crossed to a newsagent where he bought one of the disgusting small cigars he occasionally succumbed to. He had two more stops before he was due at the BBC World Service in Bush House. He set off briskly down Charing Cross Road and headed across Trafalgar Square to Whitehall. A hundred yards before Downing Street he entered the familiar door marked Cabinet Offices and swiped his pass at the security door. The man at the desk recognised him and dialled the secretary to the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee without Kilmartin asking. Ten minutes later Andrew Fortune appeared in shirtsleeves, a figure of neat anaemic brilliance with almost white blonde hair and a ready smile. He took Kilmartin by the elbow and led him to a large office, where two young civil servants were clearing up after a meeting.
‘Terrific review in the TLS, Peter. I was very pleased to see it.’
‘I can’t believe you’ve got time to read book reviews, Andrew.’
‘My wife spotted it. Your publishers must be terribly pleased.’ This was followed by a quizzical smile. ‘You’re not due in here are you? No crisis in the tribal areas that I don’t know about? No Uzbek turmoil that has escaped the notice of the Joint Intelligence Committee?’ Fortune was a career bureaucrat who went home to Hertfordshire most evenings and had never enjoyed serving abroad with SIS. He’d got himself into a couple of homosexual scrapes, one with a young Turkish art dealer who’d attempted to blackmail the happily married father of two with a photograph of him snorting cocaine. Kilmartin had helped him – saved his career probably – yet there was something about Fortune that he had never liked. He looked down at the beautifully ordered desk. ‘I thought I’d pop in to ask you about one of your former charges on the South East Asia desk.’
‘Is it important?’
‘Not especially. I would value your advice though.’
‘It’s good to see you. Now who is it?’
‘Her name is Kate Lockhart, formerly Koh. Used to do for us in Indonesia.’
‘Yes, I remember her well. Her husband died and she moved on. To be honest, I never took to her much. A rather self-contained woman, though she turned on the charm for the job. Professionally, she was very good, when you managed to point her in the right direction. Trouble was she was schooled by McBride and she had learned a lot of bad habits from him. What’s this for – a job?’
‘No.’
‘Then are you going to tell me what it is for?’
‘Certainly. Is she reliable – solid?’
Fortune thought. ‘God, I can’t remember much about her. Resistant is the word that comes to mind.’
‘I see. She was a friend of David Eyam’s.’
Fortune’s expression changed: Eyam’s name was still radioactive. ‘Really. Yes, well, that was all a very sad business. I mean his death, of course.’
‘Just looking into the other matter – keeping an eye on it, you know. But I would like you to keep that ultra-quiet. Not a word, Andrew.’
Fortune’s eyes narrowed while the smile remained. ‘What are you up to, Peter?’
‘As I said, looking into it.’ He stopped. ‘For the prime minister, Andrew.’
‘But surely that’s all over with – long gone?’
‘Er . . . yes. But there are concerns. As you know, after things die down people are apt to talk because they think the toxicity of a particular situation somehow diminishes.’
Fortune placed his palm on his chest. ‘Not me, Peter.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I don’t quite understand what you’re saying then.’
Kilmartin touched the back of the chair. ‘May I?’
‘Please do,’ said Fortune, sitting down on the sofa. ‘There’s surely no danger. She’s an ordinary citizen with none of the necessary knowledge. I mean, this stuff was very restricted. Very, very restricted. I didn’t – don’t – even know about SPINDRIFT.’
‘Quite,’ said Kilmartin. Now he had got the name of the project that had put Mary MacCullum in jail and caused Eyam’s fall from grace. ‘It’s like this: I’m just standing in the outfield, Andrew. Should any ball be lobbed my way, I hope to catch it.’ He paused. ‘So, nothing comes to mind about Kate Lockhart?’
‘Well, I gather she is of interest. I imagine that’s who they are referring to, though I have not heard her name mentioned. There was some concern about his heir. Has she inherited his estate?’
‘The heir could be a worry, I agree. It is – how shall I say – a possibility that his estate includes damaging material.’
‘Well, exactly, and the situation politically is not good. Not good at all.’
Fortune was, unsurprisingly, on the other team, not an important player perhaps, but someone who saw the present government as the only solution to the nation’s problems and either consciously or unconsciously had jettisoned the neutrality of a civil servant to become a party member. At some stage he would have to ask him about Eyam’s time at the JIC and the events leading up to his fall, but now was not the moment. He looked around the room. ‘This job must be tough. The sheer volume of material coming over your desk makes me feel faint. You don’t need another headache. None of us does.’
‘Well, it’s not that we can’t cope,’ Fortune said hastily. ‘It’s just that this stuff is very sensitive and it has now become essential for the country’s future.’ The little bastard did know what SPINDRIFT was and he was a supporter. The country’s future, my arse, thought Kilmartin and rose with a grave nod.
‘You’re looking very trim, Peter. Very fit indeed.’
‘The result of almost ceaseless food poisoning in the East,’ he said. ‘But thanks. You’re scrubbing up well yourself. There’s nothing else you can remember about Kate Lockhart, is there?’
‘It will all be in the personnel files at the office.’
‘Yes, but they’re dry as dust, as you know well. Never tell you anything really interesting, do they?’ Fortune knew that he was referring to Ali Mustafa Bey and it would be enough to sharpen his memory. He thought for a moment.
‘Drugs . . . maybe she used cocaine after her husband died. There was some suspicion of that when we interviewed her to see if she wanted to stay on.’
Kilmartin doubted that. It was typical of the office to mistake grief for chemical dependence. ‘Really, how interesting. That may be of great help. Thank you. I’m glad I dropped in. I do hope I haven’t messed up your afternoon.’
‘Not at all.’
‘And all this is very much entre nous. Let’s keep a watch on this thing. Lunch next week?’
‘Yes, I think I can.’
‘I’ll ring your secretary.’
Fortune gave him a boy-scout grin. Kilmartin smiled also and patted the untrustworthy little shit on the back. He had found what he came for: the name of the project and maybe the beginning of an angle.
An hour later he was crouched down marvelling at the bas-relief of a herd of gazelle in the Assyrian rooms of the British Museum when Murray Link joined him. He rose and handed him a paperback copy of Assyrian Sculpture.
‘The DVD is taped to the inside back cover,’ he said, looking round the hunting scenes from Ashurbanipal’s palace in Nineveh and taking in the handful of people in the room at the same time. ‘Seen any of this before, Murray?’
Link, a short man with a narrow, furtive face, unwrapped his scarf. A shelf of fine hair was brushed forward over his forehead and he blinked from inside the drained complexion of a night worker. ‘It’s the film that was on TV, as you said.’
‘No, you idiot, I mean these sculptures. They were carved in 645 BC, or thereabouts. Astonishingly lifelike aren’t they?’
Link shrugged. ‘About the film,’ he said.
‘The DVD you’ve got there is a second- or third-generation copy so . . .’
‘So, we won’t be able to tell whether the camcorder wrote all the film to the original disc. You should have emailed it to me or used the post. It would have saved us both a lot of time.’ Link looked at him hard. He knew there was something else Kilmartin wanted from him.
‘It’s good to see your face, Murray. Good to see you prospering in the private sector.’
Link shrugged. He had been removed from the Technical Department of MI6 after being found guilty of one too many lapses in security. He went on to set up Blink Forensics in East London. ‘Only part of the film was shown in court and on TV,’ continued Kilmartin. ‘There’s some material at the beginning before the main action. I want you to examine it and see if anything strikes you. We’re looking for any known faces and anomalies – anything which tells us more about that afternoon in Cartagena and the death of David Eyam.’
‘You think we killed him?’
Kilmartin gave a shake of the head. ‘You’ve spent a lot of time analysing films of explosions from the Middle East and Pakistan, Murray. You know what to look for.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time local hoods did our work for us.’
Kilmartin’s eyes returned to the herd of gazelle – a male turned its head towards the sound of the king’s men who were about to drive the herd into the arms of death – and considered the idea of David Eyam’s assassination. ‘The question is whether we believe David Eyam was more of an inconvenience alive, or dead. You could argue that he was more of a threat dead, because he had nothing to lose. A man like Eyam would not go gentle into that good night. He wouldn’t take it lying down, Murray.’
‘I’ll look at the film over the weekend. Are you in a rush?’
‘Right, I’ll be getting along then. Where should I send the bill for the analysis?’
‘Of course! I’m sorry. I was forgetting you’re in business these days. Would you like me to give you something upfront? Or you can send the account to St Antony’s and I will settle up at the end of your work.’
Link looked embarrassed. ‘I’d welcome something now. It’ll come to about a thousand pounds – say half.’
Kilmartin moved to a small gallery off the main rooms where there were no other visitors, wrote out a cheque for the full amount and blew on the ink before handing it to him. ‘There was something else, if you wouldn’t mind sparing a little more of your time, Murray.’
Link folded the cheque and placed it in his inside pocket. His manner softened. ‘How can I help?’
‘I know none of us is meant to gossip; cross fertilisation between agencies is frowned upon. But we all know things are occasionally shared between the technical departments – the various specialists at the office and with MI5 and GCHQ. You get to know each other, you talk the same language, share your problems.’
‘That’s what they chucked me out for.’
‘Yes, I know. But I wonder if you have come across the name SPINDRIFT? Have you ever heard it referred to?’
‘Sounds like a fucking washing powder. No, I haven’t.’
Kilmartin persisted. ‘We’re both grown-ups, Murray. We’re intelligence practitioners – signed the Official Secrets Act. You’re not passing anything to the enemy, to the outside. And you should know that I am working at the request of the highest authority.’
‘Then why don’t you ask that high authority?’ said Link.
‘That’s not possible, but come on, Murray, your friends and colleagues must have heard of this, surely.’
Link eyed him for a few seconds. ‘What scenario are we talking about?’
Kilmartin had an unreasonable hatred of the word ‘scenario’. ‘Context,’ he said without thinking. ‘I have little sense of the context. But this is something the Joint Intelligence Committee is aware of.’
‘Has it got a label?’
‘The one that says, “This will burn your fucking face off.” I mean, if I go typing the name into Google it will set off government trip wires; next they’ll be ripping my fingernails out before I know it, Mr Kilmartin.’
‘See what you can find out anyway, Murray. Have a word with your friends. It’s important.’
‘If you say so; but I’ll need paying for the information – properly.’
‘Of course, Murray,’ said Kilmartin, his eyes drifting to the two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old relief of a lioness speared and crippled, dragging herself through the desert sand.